This article is written by Sudhir, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a contributor to this blog. This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in sites like lyricstrans.com and ibollywoodsongs.com etc then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.

Blog Day :

3498

Post No. :

14056

Missing Films of 1960s – 58
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1966 and 1967 appears to be very fertile years, as far as discovering obscure films and songs is concerned. I start searching for the films from these years, and I continue finding films and songs that seem to have been lost in time. A good number of them have already appeared online in one form or another. But there is still a good set that seem to be as yet unavailable online.

Today’s film – ‘Sheba And Hercules’ from 1967, is one of them. After some earlier comments from some readers on the blog and also some followers on YouTube, which corrected my statement about the song being posted for the first time, I try to be more cautious, and apply more effort to search the song before posting. So for this song today, I searched using many different options, but I am not able to trace any song of this film online. But I do not claim that the song is making a debut online, because I have been held in error of such statements before. So I will say that as far as my searches could show, I did not find this film and this song online as yet.

The name of the film itself indicates an obscure and a lost film. As dear Arun ji has also noted in one of his articles earlier, we can depend on the producers of Hindi films to create links across histories and across geographies; even to the extent of combining factual history and fictional characters. This endeavor to connect and to integrate disparate persona, events and aeons, is really ‘commendable’ – these producers and these films are working towards not just national integration, but also international integration. These producers deserve a big applause for their effort. 🙂

Case in point is this film. I am going by the title – since I have no clue as to the content and the storyline of the film. Hercules is a Roman God whose stories are part of the Roman Mythology. Incidentally, in Greek mythology also, a similar Hero/God appears, with a slightly altered name – Heracles. There are many similarities in the stories of these two, across these two cultures.

Queen Sheba is very much a historical persona, whose details are found in Biblical history, and from there connects are found in Jewish and Islamic history also. There is archaeological evidence that also supports this historical records. Sheba was the Queen of the kingdom of Saba – area in the southern Arabic peninsula that is current day Yemen. Her historical record is contemporaneous with King Solomon, who was the king of Israel in circa 970-931 BC. There is a detailed record of Queen Sheba’s visit to Israel, accompanied by a grand retinue, and of bringing many gifts of spices, dry fruits and other items, loaded on camels. The Jewish history records that the spices brought by Queen Sheba were of the type never seen and used before in Israel. There is a record of their conversations, in which Sheba asks many questions from Solomon, who is considered to be the wisest man who ever lived on this earth. After being satisfied with the answers she receives, she returns to her lands. Historians have recorded this visit as one of the earliest examples of a trade and cultural exchange delegation going from one nation to another.

But I digress. The point I am trying to arrive at is the these two mythological / historical personae – Hercules and Sheba – could never have possibly been contemporaneous in person. However, still, the producers of Hindi films have found a happy meeting ground for these two, in the film titled ‘Sheba And Hercules’. I would request other readers and friends to please add some information about the storyline of this film.

The film is a costume drama produced under the banner of Meena Films, Bombay and is directed by BS Chaudhry. The star cast includes Randhawa, Vijaya Chaudhary, Indira, Heeralal, Kamal Mehra, Tuntun, Rajan Kapoor, Trilok Singh, and Saudagar Singh amongst others. Geet Kosh tells us that there are six songs in this film. All songs have been written by Raja Mehdi Ali Khan and the music is by a gentleman named Chandan. Now this is a name that I have not encountered before. As I tried to look through the Geet Kosh, I am not able to locate any other reference to this name as a music director. Quite likely, this person, as many others who have given music in one or two films, would probably have been an assistant music director, and then got a chance to try his hand as an independent artist. But after one outing, did not get any more work in the industry.

The singing voice in this song is of Krishna Kalle. This is a song of ‘expression of love’, in which the lady is expressing her magnanimity that she is a benefactor, and that as a favor unto him, she has fallen in love with the gentleman to whom this song is being addressed. Now that is quite a thought. 🙂

So with this song, the film ‘Sheba And Hercules’ makes a debut on our blog. And so does the music director Chandan. I would request other knowledgeable readers and friends to please add more information about this film, and the music director.